London Olympics Day 11: Queen Victoria ends her reign

Author: Stephanie Kovalchik

A silver in her last track race before

retiring added to Victoria Pendleton's

gold medal in the Keirin. Image

by johnthescone/Wikimedia.

After Day 11, Team GB had collected an impressive eight medals tying Russia for the third spot in the overall medals race. Three of Great Britain's medals were won by cyclists and they were second medals for all three. Victoria Pendleton added a silver to a gold with a second place finish in the Women's track sprint and now retures from the sport. Twenty year-old Laura Trott won her second gold in the Women's Omnium and is the future of the sport, whilst Sir Chris Hoy, the 36 year-old cycling phenomenon, also took a second gold of the London Games with a victory in the Men's Keirin. This is the 7th Olympic medal for Sir Chris Hoy, six of which are gold medals, and who has competed in four consecutive Olympic Summer Games. No wonder he was the athlete Team GB chose to bear the nation's flag at this Olympiad's Opening Ceremony. He now surpasses the gold medal tally of rower Sir Steve Redgrave who won 5 gold medals in 5 consecutive Olympic Games.

In gymnastics on the horizontal bar the crowd were treated to a sublime performance by 26-year-old Dutchman Epke Zonderland whilst the USA's Aly Raisman added gold in the women's floor.

It was a family affair for men's triathlon with the Brownlee brothers, Alistair and Jonathan, of Leeds winning the gold and bronze, despite Jonathan incurring a 15 second penalty for mounting his bike too early. Had 15-year-old brother Edward competed perhaps we would have seen a Brownlee medal sweep.

Let's see how Day 11's track & field medalists compare to their forerunners. 

Men's 1500m. The Men's 1500m event has been a track & field event at the Olympics since the first Games of 1896. This Summer Taoufik Makhloufi took the second gold earned by an Algerian in the event, the first athletics medal for Algeria at the XXX Olympiad. Makhloufi's time of 3:34.08 was more than one second slower than the fastest time at the 2008 Beijing 1500m race. Rashid Ramzi flew by his competitors with a time of 3:32.94, earning the first medal for Bahrain with his gold-medal performance. However, Ramzi's result was subsequently overturned when he was found to have been positive for the blood-booster CERA during the Games.

Women's 100m hurdles. When this event was first introduced at the Los Angeles Olympics of 1932, women ran a distance of 80 meters. It wasn't until 1972 that the distance was lengthened by 20 meters. Still, today's female hurdlers are asked to run 10 meters less than the men, a quite anomalous feature of the Olympic Programme considering that both men and women compete in the 400m hurdles.

As one of the most tricky events of the track & field there have been some major upsets over the Olympic years. There was the fall that took Lolo Jones out of medal contention in 2008, a seeming repeat of the fall that ended Gail Devers hopes for a second gold at the 1992 Barcelona Games. But this summer, with Jessica Ennis deciding to skip the event after her heptahlon gold, the 100m hurdles played out to expectations. Sally Pearson, the 2011 World Champion in the 100m hurdles, won the first women's athletics medal for Australia with an Olympic-record-setting time of 12.35 seconds and a dramatic photo finish.

Men's high jump. The high jump has the most medal-clustering of any event. This year was no exception. While gold jumper Ivan Ukhov of Russia and silver medalist Erik Kynard of the USA clearly distinguished themselves with heights of 2.38 and 2.33 meters, three athletes tied for bronze with jumps of 2.29 meters, including GB's own Robert Grabarz.

Men's discus throw. The Ancient Olympians would probably be shocked with the progress made in the discus throw during the 20th and 21st centuries. From distances of 28 meters one century ago, today's Olympians are pushing towards lengths of 70 meters. Germany's Robert Harting won gold at London with a throw of 68.27 meters, 1.13 meters behind the impressive 69.40 meters of his countryman Lars Riedel at the 1996 Summer Olympics.